Washington waits to levy tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports

World Today

A man is reflected on an advertisement for Apple’s MacBook computer on display near a shopping mall in Beijing, Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018. China’s government says it is ready to retaliate if U.S. President Donald Trump goes ahead with plans for another tariff hike on Chinese goods. The Commerce Ministry expressed confidence it can maintain “steady and healthy” economic growth despite their spiraling trade battle. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Global economies are standing by to see if the White House slaps its biggest round of tariffs on Chinese imports.

CGTN’s Jessica Stone reports.

This time, it’s tariffs up to 25 percent on another $200 billion of Chinese imports. The goal of the White House is to extract concessions from Beijing on intellectual property protections. If the tariffs are imposed, the U.S. action would bring the total amount of taxed goods to around 40 percent of all Chinese imports to the United States.

China’s Ministry of Commerce warned, Thursday, that if Washington makes good on its threat, it would retaliate with tariffs of its own.

“If the U.S. ignores the objections of the majority of companies, and adopts new tariffs against China, China will have to take counter-measures. China reiterates that dialogue and consultation, rather than a trade war, is the correct way to settle trade frictions,” said Gao Feng, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump talked about the status of negotiations between Washington and Beijing over tariffs. The last round of talks in August ended without any announcements or future meetings planned.

“Right now, we just can’t make that deal,” Trump said. “In the meantime, we’re taking in billions of dollars of taxes coming in from China, and — with the potential of billions and billions of dollars more taxes coming in.”

Trump refers to the tariffs on Chinese goods as a money-maker for Washington’s coffers. But Americans have voiced plenty of concern – about these proposed tariffs. In fact, more than four thousand comments were offered to the U.S. government in response to this proposal. Many of them — asking the White House to back off….or give them a break.

“Bags, small leathers, hats, hair accessories, we’re not sharing IP,” Karen Giberson of the Accessories Council, a trade group, told CGTN back in August. “These products have been made the same way for years and years and years. And China just happens to do it at a cost-effective way and deliver great quality.”

Businesses can ask the government to exempt them from these tariffs. That deadline is October 9.

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